Sharing a photo of a Denver sunrise

Earlier this morning I managed to snap a picture of the sunrise. It was fantastic and majestic (dare I say fanjestic?). The camera on my Google Pixel 3 XL does a pretty good job of capturing a moment, but it does not produce the type of depth and detail that a really amazing full size camera captures. Those amazing machine learning algorithms over at Google Photos did some magic to the base photograph. One of the photos shared below is stylized and the other is an enhancement. Both of the modifications look pretty darn good in my opinion. It is amazing to see what the machine learning algorithms are able to accomplish with a photograph. The real question is if the algorithm could be extended to make a decision about quality vs. numerically better. The algorithm that did the enhancement was designed to move the image from the original to something that would be considered enhanced. It was able to complete a transform that is numerically accepted as an improvement or at some level at least an acceptable alteration. None of that effort relates to a judgment of quality. None of it helps determine or explain why that transform improved the image.

Google stylized this photo of a sunrise in DenverGoogle auto-enhanced this photo of a sunrise in DenverThe original photo of a sunrise in Denver